Not By a Long Shot
Not By a Long Shot

Author: T.D. Thornton

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2007-08-05

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 158648592X

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The great myth of horse racing is that the game is the regal and royal Sport of Kings. It isn't. Not by a long shot. Anyone who doubts this need look no further than Suffolk Downs, a once-proud racecourse graced in its glory years by boisterous throngs and champions such as Seabiscuit. Now the blue-collar East Boston track is one of many that have fallen on hard times. These days "Sufferin' Downs" is where grizzled Thoroughbreds come to end their careers, hopeful young jockeys aspire against daunting odds to begin them, and diehard fans cheer, curse and gamble on the entire fascinating spectacle. These bit players are not just cogs of a single, struggling horse track. They are the unseen supporting cast for a 15 billion betting industry. In fifteen years as a racing reporter and press box personality, T.D. Thornton gained access to remote corners of racetrack life off limits to the general public. He got to know the raucously Runyonesque characters and the quirky personalities of the horses; he learned the tricks of the trade from trainers, owners, and jockeys; he witnessed the tragedies and small triumphs of racing lives lived below the radar. One recent season, he finally decided to write it all down. Not by a Long Shot is a deeply textured portrait of an industry where even the best in the business lose 75 percent of the time.

Not By a Long Shot
Not By a Long Shot

Author: T.D. Thornton

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2007-08-05

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 158648592X

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The great myth of horse racing is that the game is the regal and royal Sport of Kings. It isn't. Not by a long shot. Anyone who doubts this need look no further than Suffolk Downs, a once-proud racecourse graced in its glory years by boisterous throngs and champions such as Seabiscuit. Now the blue-collar East Boston track is one of many that have fallen on hard times. These days "Sufferin' Downs" is where grizzled Thoroughbreds come to end their careers, hopeful young jockeys aspire against daunting odds to begin them, and diehard fans cheer, curse and gamble on the entire fascinating spectacle. These bit players are not just cogs of a single, struggling horse track. They are the unseen supporting cast for a 15 billion betting industry. In fifteen years as a racing reporter and press box personality, T.D. Thornton gained access to remote corners of racetrack life off limits to the general public. He got to know the raucously Runyonesque characters and the quirky personalities of the horses; he learned the tricks of the trade from trainers, owners, and jockeys; he witnessed the tragedies and small triumphs of racing lives lived below the radar. One recent season, he finally decided to write it all down. Not by a Long Shot is a deeply textured portrait of an industry where even the best in the business lose 75 percent of the time.

Long Shot
Long Shot

Author: Kennedy Ryan

Publisher: Bloom Books

Published: 2023-08-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781728284965

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From award-winning author Kennedy Ryan comes the soul-gripping, unforgettable first installment of the Hoops trilogy. Iris DuPree meets August West in a sports bar during her last semester of college. It's the conversation of a lifetime and sends sparks flying in every direction. The connection is undeniable...but the timing is all wrong. August is poised for the NBA draft, and Iris belongs to another man--basketball's "golden boy" and August's long-time rival. The two go their separate ways, but they often recall that electric night and what could have been. While August has embarked on his all-star life, studded with wealth and fame, Iris's perfect public relationship has become a nightmare behind closed doors. A tarnished dream of fool's gold. When August re-enters her life, the world seems briefly bright again, but Iris's darkest nights are not over yet. To survive, she must build her own strength and trust that her bond with August can endure after all this time. Even when her fraudulent prince has vowed never to let her go.

Long Shot
Long Shot

Author: Mike Piazza

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-02-18

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1439150230

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The twelve-time All-Star catcher describes the inspiration he gleaned from his self-made father, his early career with the Dodgers, his memorable 2000 World Series with the Mets, and the controversies that have marked his career.

Long Shot
Long Shot

Author: Mike Lupica

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780399247170

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Pedro, an avid basketball player, decides to run for class president, challenging a teammate who is also one of the most popular boys in school.

Long Shot
Long Shot

Author: Craig Hodges

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Published: 2017-01-09

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1608467465

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In this memoir, the Chicago Bulls basketball star details his life on the court as an athlete and off the court as an activist. As a member of the 1992 world-champion Chicago Bulls, a dashiki-clad Hodges delivered a handwritten letter to President George H. W. Bush demanding that he do more to address racism and economic inequality. Hodges was also a vocal union activist, initiated a boycott against Nike, and spoke out forcefully against police brutality in the wake of the Rodney King beating. But his outspokenness cost him dearly. In the prime of his career, after ten NBA seasons, Hodges was blackballed from the NBA for using his platform as a professional athlete to stand up for justice. In this powerful, passionate, and captivating memoir, Hodges shares the stories—including encounters with Nelson Mandela, Coretta Scott King, Jim Brown, R. Kelly, Michael Jordan, and others—from his lifelong fight for equality for Black Americans. Praise for Long Shot “A skillfully told, affecting memoir of sports and social activism.” —Kirkus Reviews “Hodges has told his compelling life story with fiery passion, looping around a cast of characters stretching from Jordan, Magic Johnson and Phil Jackson back to Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, before returning to the present.” —Guardian “Craig Hodges is someone I looked up to as a child & now as an adult . . . I read Long Shot in like two hours, I couldn’t stop turning pages. There are so many hooks in it.” —Jesse Williams, actor, producer, director, activist “A beautifully written, brutally honest book. If you loved the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls, if you love black history, or if you are fascinated by the politics of sports, I highly recommend this book. Simply put: Craig Hodges’ life is incredible and Long Shot is invaluable.” —AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature

Long Shot
Long Shot

Author: Chris Paul

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2030-12-31

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 1416958207

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A Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.

Queen Move
Queen Move

Author: Kennedy Ryan

Publisher: Blue Box Press

Published: 2020-05-26

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1952457025

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From Wall Street Journal, USA Today Bestselling and RITA® Award-winning Author Kennedy Ryan, comes a captivating second chance romance like only she can deliver... The boy who always felt like mine is now the man I can't have… Dig a little and you'll find photos of me in the bathtub with Ezra Stern. Get your mind out of the gutter. We were six months old. Pry and one of us might confess we saved our first kiss for each other. The most clumsy, wet, sloppy . . . spectacular thirty seconds of my adolescence. Get into our business and you'll see two families, closer than blood, torn apart in an instant. Twenty years later, my "awkward duckling" best friend from childhood, the boy no one noticed, is a man no one can ignore. Finer. Fiercer. Smarter. Taken. Tell me it's wrong. Tell me the boy who always felt like mine is now the man I can’t have. When we find each other again, everything stands in our way--secrets, lies, promises. But we didn't come this far to give up now. And I know just the move to make if I want to make him mine.

Long Shot
Long Shot

Author: Azad Cudi

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Published: 2019-02-12

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0802146899

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A Kurdish journalist who volunteered as a sniper in the fight against ISIS reveals his story in a “gripping memoir . . . elegantly told” (Publishers Weekly). In 2002, at age nineteen, Azad was conscripted into Iran’s army and forced to fight his own people. Refusing to go to war against his fellow Kurds, he deserted and smuggled himself to the United Kingdom, where he was granted asylum, became a citizen, and learned English. But in 2014, having returned to the Middle East as a social worker in the wake of the Syrian civil war, Azad found he would have to pick up a weapon once again. After twenty-one days of intensive training as a sniper, Azad became one of seventeen volunteer marksmen deployed by the Kurdish army when ISIS besieged the city of Kobani in Rojava, the newly autonomous region of the Kurds. Here, he tells the inside story of the Kurdish forces’ bloody street battles against the Islamic State. Vastly outnumbered, the Kurds would have to kill the jihadis one by one, and Azad takes us on a harrowing journey to reveal the sniper unit’s essential role in ISIS’s eventual defeat. Weaving the brutal events of war with personal and political reflection, he meditates on the incalculable price of victory—the permanent effects of war on the body and mind; the devastating death of six of his closest comrades; the loss of hundreds of volunteers in battle. But as Azad explains, these sacrifices saved not only a city but a people and their land. “A propulsive memoir that captures the grim reality of small-scale conflict and reveals the fragmented politics of the Middle East today” (Kirkus Reviews), Long Shot tells how, against all odds, a few thousand men and women achieved the impossible and kept their dream of freedom alive.

Long Shot
Long Shot

Author: D. Jackson Leigh

Publisher: Bold Strokes Books Inc

Published: 2010-03-01

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1602824266

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If you're going to bet a long shot, you have to be prepared to lose. Equine veterinarian Tory Greyson has always played the safe bet. That is, until she runs into a very cute, opinionated, jobless journalist. The small town of Cherokee Falls is just a pit stop for Leah Montgomery while she figures out how to put her career back on track and deal with her grandmother's slide into dementia. Tory is unable to resist when Leah talks her into putting money on a long shot at the track and then spending the winnings to buy a wild pony. Will Tory take a chance on Leah, too? Or will she stick with the safe bet and pursue Bridgette LeRoy, the calm, Zen-centered artist who arrives to teach at the local college?